Sunday, August 5, 2012

Congratulations.

Around this time summer last year I got an email from an Israeli student who had build a RepStrap and was doing experiments with printing porcelain:

Hello.I'm an industrial design student from Israel (H.I.T institute in Holon).recently I built a 3d printer that prints Porcelain clay (short video).

I must say that your project inspired me in many ways, so thank you!

If I may, I would like to ask you a few questions

1. one of my main problems is that the porcelain collapse after about 4-5 cm (depend on the shape). how do you prevent the clay from collapsing?2. I am using a 1.2 mm nozzle, i wonder what diameter/type of nozzle do you use?3. I am trying to build a feeding system that will allow an "endless" feeding material (instead ofchanging syringes all the time) - do you have any idea or have you guys tried anything like that?

I was thinking of using peristaltic pump, but the "pulses" bother me..

Thank you very much,Best Regards,Eran Gal-Or.

Regularly we get these kinds of emails at Unfold and we always try to help out as much as possible but often these discussions die out after a couple of emails, students loose interest or aimed to high etc. But almost 300 emails later, bouncing off ideas on paste extruders (and lots of him hanging out at #reprap, reading, tinkering, building an Arduino controlled dolly and what else) Eran graduated this june with a fantastic, massive 80x80x80 cm darwin style printer that prints porcelain in a continuous way using a commercial moineau pump and a refilling plunger type extruder he developed. Enjoy the movie! …and the arduino controlled dolly movie pans :)

He's preparing documentation on a blog, I will relay the link when its online and look forward to it.

Congratulations Eran on a job well done!

ps. a lot of the stuff we've been talking about with Eran is also what I am slowly trying to document in this blog. Tomorrow another lengthy post.